Almost Unseen:
Selected Haiku of George Swede

This clothbound edition collects the best haiku by George Swede written
and published over the last thirty years.

Through a rigorous process of review of previous publications and
existing unpublished works, a selection of the author's best work
is selected for inclusion.

almost unseen
among the tangled
driftwood
naked lovers

From the Preface:

"Reading through this compilation of George Swede's haiku, I
was struck by how many of them stand as landmarks in the traverse
of haiku through the past few decades in North America. It is a treasure
to have them arrayed for us in this one collection." --Tom Lynch,
Las Cruces, New Mexico.

ISBN: 0-913719-99-4OUT OF PRINT

Brooks Books
6 Madera Court
Taylorville, IL 62568

waving goodbye
to the father a clothesline
of children's shirts

alone at last
I wonder where
everyone is

About the Author:

George Swede is currently the Chair of the Department of Psychology
and the School of Justice Studies at Ryerson Polytechnic University
in Toronto. He has published 46 books and chapbooks including 29 poetry
collections (16 exclusively haiku) and 8 books he edited or co-edited.
See more about George Swede.

His work has received over 70 awards and grants and he has given readings and workshops in hundreds of libraries, schools and universities across Canada as well as occasionally in Great Britain, Japan and the United States.

For ten years, he worked in various editorial capacities for Writers' Quarterly and for another year as the poetry editor for Poetry Toronto. He was also a guest editor for Brussels Sprout and Iron as well as a consulting editor for the publishers Houghton Mifflin and Douglas & McIntyre. He has also been on the Board of Directors of CANCOPY, on the Executive Board of The Writers' Union of Canada and a consultant for the Ontario Arts Council.

In 1977, together with Eric Amann and Betty Drevniok, he co-founded Haiku Canada.

"George Swede is the funniest haiku poet who ever lived. I'm sure his senryu would be the envy of great comedy writers like Woddy Allen or Mel Brooks." --Cor van den Heuvel, Editor, The Haiku Anthology

"An imagist in the true sense, scrupulous about his line endings and careful about the resonance between images." --Pier Di Cicco, Books in Canada

"George Swede's . . . haiku . . . are often, unlike the traditional Japanese, irregular in form, and their success depends on a verbal irony rather than a paradox in nature. They are nonetheless, superb." --William J. Higginson, Canadian Literature

"Swede's poetry is direct and refreshing, deceptively simple, yet powerful. His great talent lies in flipping reality upside-down and exposing the other side. He uses the element of surprise to show us new perspectives." —Joan Findon, Quill & Quire